Wade Bell

MacGyver

Wade is the original DFA MacGyver, and estimates that he has spent about 28 weeks in total on the ground in Guatemala. On more than one occasion Wade has completed two different missions with DFA in the same year. In recent years, Wade’s focus has been on travelling to Comitancillo with trip leader Charlie Clark in the fall. In the early days, Wade participated in missions where the DFA volunteers travelled like nomads, hauling all the equipment from one site to the next, setting up shop, working like mad for a few days and then moving on to the next location, sometimes right across the country. Some of his DFA missions have included Guatemala City, working near the dump with an organization that helped kids who lived in the dump; working in abandoned buildings in poor areas in the west of Guatemala City; Pastores, a village north of Antigua, working in a school in the heart of the cowboy boot-making district (which is basically one street); El Remate; San Pedro, a village about 45 minutes away from El Remate; and Comitancillo, setting up outside and in adobe houses with dirt floors, where baby turkeys ran around the feet of the volunteers.